Electronic paper displays, also known as e-paper or electronic ink displays, are a type of electronic display often used in electronic reading devices such as ebooks. Electronic paper displays are stateful, meaning they can display an image without constantly using power, unlike many conventional displays (e.g. LCD displays). Electronic paper displays differ from conventional displays in the way they update a displayed image. For example, electronic paper displays progressively change the value of pixels in the display from a starting value to a final value through intermediate values when switching between displayed images.
Even different electronic paper displays update displayed images in different ways. Some conventional electronic paper displays update all pixels in the display concurrently in a global update. When updating the pixels concurrently, if a new value for a pixel is received during the update, the new value is not reflected in the current update sequence. Instead, the pixel is updated after a second global update that must wait until after the first update is finished. This limits the display's ability to change images quickly.
Other conventional displays update on a per pixel basis, however, these displays use individual counters for each pixel in the display. Maintaining counters for each pixel is cumbersome and consumes a large amount of memory bandwidth since every incremental update of a pixel uses a memory read and write-back to the pixel's counter.
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